STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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‘I am definitely not a jazz singer’
ELAINE MITCHENER is a singer who defies all categories — and that’s the way she likes it, she tells Chris Searle
Genre-busting: Elaine Mitchener
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
AT SCHOOL in Tower Hamlets in east London, Elaine Mitchener’s flute teacher was a jazz and free-improvising musician who introduced her to the greats — from musicians Charlie Parker to John Coltrane, vocalists from Billie Holiday to Janet Baker and composers such as Bela Bartok and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Thus her inspiration, she stresses, is “environmental. I am definitely not a jazz singer.” As well as a vocalist, she’s a movement artist and composer who's been described the Finanacial Times as a “genre-crossing virtuoso.”
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